Richard C. Brown, MD ’63
September 9, 2024 – The UVA Medical Alumni Association is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2024 Humanitarian Award: Richard C. Brown, MD ’63.
Richard C. Brown applied to medical school with the intention of serving poor people in poor countries. After earning his MD at the University of Virginia and completing an internal medicine residency, he received a degree in public health nutrition and tropical medicine at the Harvard School of Public Health. He then obtained board certification in preventive medicine.
In 1966, Dr. Brown accepted a commission in the United States Public Health Service which promised him a post in Monrovia, Liberia, with the JFK Hospital Project. This project was managed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and he was appointed as director of its training school for Liberian health workers. The training was for Liberian nurses, sanitarians, and village health workers.
Here, on his first overseas assignment, Dr. Brown learned how to teach health subjects in an African setting. He experienced the need for practical teaching materials, clearly written with a recognizable English vocabulary. English was the second or third language for these students. The experience gave Dr. Brown a background for his later production of field manuals, designed for use by health workers who worked alone in rural African village settings.
Dr. Brown was serving in Nazareth Hospital, outside of Nairobi, Kenya, when the AIDS epidemic took hold there. He immediately formed an HIV/AIDS team and secured funds from family and friends to build a clinic building for managing ambulatory patients living with HIV/AIDS. The Nazareth AIDS work drew the attention of the Kenyan National Health Service, and Dr. Brown was appointed a member of the national AIDS Task Force. At his final departure from Africa in 2005, more than 4,000 AIDS patients were under care at Nazareth Hospital.
Dr. Brown’s career of service also carried him to long-term assignments in Tunisia, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) and Kenya. He spent two years in Haiti (1993-95) as medical director of Hopital Ste Croix in Leogane.
He also did short-term evaluations and consultancies for the World Bank, USAID and non-governmental organizations. For these assignments, he was called to Egypt, Mali, Senegal, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Congo, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.
Dr. Brown’s undergraduate alma mater, the University of Richmond, recently awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree. The citation accompanying this award gave full recognition of his contributions to society and to humanity.
Congratulations to Dr. Brown on this well-deserved recognition.